Coffee Setups for the Persnikkity

Since I work with a bunch of people who care about quality, and also about
coffee, and since I am definitely one of them, a couple of times I’ve been asked
about what tools I would recommend to build your home coffee paradise.

Pour over

My recommendation for the home coffee enthusiast is 100% in the pour-over camp.
There are lots of variations, the equipment is inexpensive, and the results are
super nuanced and can be fun to tinker with.

The basic equipment needed are

Your favorite coffee mug

Some pour-over vessel and appropriate filters

Something to pour hot water with

Some coffee beans (ground)

Vessels

The two basic pour-over vessel types are a Chemex and a “single-cup” vessel.
Both are fantastic and produce great results with slightly different technique.
There are also “hybrid” devices such as the Clever Coffee
Dripper which is
apparently fantastic but I haven’t had the chance to experiment. If you are
opting into the Chemex camp, there are
various sizes of brewers so choose the style and size you prefer. This will not
affect the quality of your coffee.

If you are choosing the “single-cup” variety I really like the Hario V60 and the
Bee House Ceramic
Dripper.
The latter has a couple of advantages in that the “windows” at the base of the
dripper allow you to see relative volumes of coffee to that which your mug will
contain (yes.. you can weigh your water, I don’t, maybe I should, but I still
like the visual feedback) and its holes are smaller so it is easier to dial in
your process than with the V60. That said, I’ve had fantastic luck with the V60
after taking the time to dial in my process and am very happy with it.

Filters

As important as your vessel are your filters. The Chemex filters are the gold
standard of quality across the board. I recommend againstThe
Kone as reports are that
the “clean cup” of the Chemex is immediately undone by this, admittedly sexy,
devise. Use paper filters. Since we’re on the subject, a recent taste-test of
unbleached vs. bleached filters showed the latter to be significantly better
e.g. they do not contribute a strong paper taste to the coffee. I was shocked,
as a complete disbeliever, that such a strong taste could be contributed by the
unbleached filters but it was clear as day. Chemex has a nice
selection, though I
have ever only used the square variety.If you are using the Hario V60, I
highly recommend their filters
as they do not contribute any paper flavor and work perfectly with their vessel.
For the Bee House vessel a standard #2 or #4 filter will work perfectly (with
the latter extending over the top of the vessel), and Sweet Marias
, a reputable vendor of awesome coffee gear, recommends these.

Kettles

To pour your water over your coffee a simple measuring cup (with a nice
beak-shaped pour spout) or a steaming filter can be used but the results were
tedious in my experience. Instead I recommend dropping the little but of change
and using a proper goose-neck kettle. (This is exactly the point where you
should feel a little dorky.) The Hario
Buono
is probably the best known though the
Bonavita
is a fantastic deal and even has an electric version
and even a temperature controlled version.

Grinders

As much as we don’t want to admit it, grinders are as important to the brewing
process as anything else. The #1 most important quality in a grinder, above all
else, is consistency. Speed, expense, etc. are all secondary to consistency,
and by consistency, I mean how consistent the size of grind being produced is.
There are very expensive machines that do a great job but for a home users the
Baratza Virtuoso
is my pick. Recently I was taken away from my Baratza and was exposed to the
very stylish Bodum Bistro,
which to its credit, was a very very good grinder. The Bodum’s granularity of
grind was much less than the Baratzas, but clearly the prior produced a grind of
such quality as to warrant a mention here.

If you are a particularly manual individual Hario makes a pair of fantastic
hand-grinders in the
Skeron
and the
Mini.
Even if you have one of the above home grinders these are perfect, along with a
simple pour-over vessel for a travel setup.

Accoutrements

You may prefer to put your “single-cup” pour-over vessel onto something other
than your mug. My home setup includes a chemistry
ring-stand
(and support).
That particular setup is a bit particular as the ring support extends over the
bevel on the base meaning there is a bit of a balancing act, perhaps replacing
the base or finding another stand is the key. If you’re into that whole
chemistry theme a 400ml beaker
makes an excellent post-extraction drip catcher to go with your ring stand,
and a beaker-mug
completes the motif.

Process

A great tool for dialing in your process is Intelligensia Coffee’s
iPhone App.
I discovered it by scanning their random QRCode at a store carrying them but am
very glad I did. The app itself has information about their coffees,
instructions on various brewing techniques, and includes a timer for many
preparation styles, with various timed steps along the way. For example, the
pour-over timer provides for a 45-second bloom followed by two minutes of brew
time. By strictly following the times in the app I was able to adjust my grind
and my pour-over technique to make it very consistent. From there,
experimentation was key. I highly recommend using this app, or another timer,
in order to dial in the process at some point. The brewing instructions in the
application also provide details on water weight/volume as appropriate by
brewing technique, which is perfect if you are even more persnikkity than I am.

The detail-oriented of you in the crowd will ask extremely important questions
such as “how hot should my water be” and “how much water should I use”. The
particularly astute reader will ask “can I weigh my water? Can I account for
the water absorbed by the grounds?” The answer is yes. I am actually not that
detail oriented. I’ve read it repeated enough that I believe it to be true that
boiling water, after being transferred to my kettle and sitting a few seconds,
has cooled enough that it will not steal my precious volatile compounds that
make coffee so amazing. As to volume, yes I have a “flask mug”, as listed
above” and 275-300ml is kinda the sweet spot for me (to 25g of coffee) but this
is very unscientific.

An extremely good coffee-dork friend of mine has the
following to say on the subject:

“I know within a gram or so how much my grinder puts out, and so I use the same
amount of water every time now. … I can’t remember, but I think I’m at like
21-22g of coffee, and 11.5 ounces of water. So, I put the rig on the scale, and
tare it before pouring in the water. 1.5 ounces first, to bloom it a bit, and
then slowly build up to 11.5 ounces after. But, if I’m low on beans on the last
grind of a bag, I’ll measure the grounds in grams and adjust the water
accordingly. I haven’t tweaked it much after the initial tests. I don’t mess
with the grind really either.”

Delicious coffees

There are so many great roasters now days take your pick. Find someone local
who really cares and does a great job. I like coffee from lots of folks so take
your pick!!

Espresso

Firstly, I do not recommend someone who really cares about coffee get an
espresso machine for home unless money is not an issue. I don’t like full auto
machines and would recommend a semi-auto, or if you’re a real dork, maybe a
lever machine (though lever espresso and pump-machine espresso are as different
as IPA and Westvletteren and probably shouldn’t be discussed simultaneously).
If you can spend as much as you like the following machines are my
recommendations:

If you want to dork out and hack your espresso machine the Rancilio Silvia is
the Arduino of the coffee world. Go for it.

And, just as the grinder is critical for great pour-over, so too is it critical
for espresso. The default go-to grinder for someone serious at home is the
Mazzer Mini
(I think I prefer the doserless option but a doser might be fine too). If
you’ve opted for the Rancilio Silvia above then you may also really dig the
Rancilio Rocky
grinder which is its matching sister.